I know, I know, this is SO boring. I want to eat syrupy, sugar laden treats all day long just like the next person, but I can’t. My skin gets angry and spotty and my bottom seems to miraculously increase in size. It’s all just deeply unfair but then that’s how life is. You can’t eat cake for every meal. Believe me, I’ve tried. READ MORE

Someone asked me for a variant on my refined sugar free banana flapjacks. Well I have always been one to respond to polite enquiries, so here they are. Apple and pear flapjacks no less. As they’re (refined) sugar free, baby Lawrence, 11 months, has been chowing down on them with aplomb. At first he wasn’t so keen. I think he was missing the banana flavour, but now he’s all about the apple & pear variety. He bangs his high chair when he sees one about to be unleashed.

Leicester is in a state of high excitement; practically a frenzy. The last time this happened was when Sam Bailey won the X Factor. This time it’s an altogether more regal affair. Richard III is being properly buried. The correct name for this is ‘reinterment,’ but no one knows how to say that or indeed exactly what it means. Anyway, I thought I’d make something that good old King Richard might have eaten at a banquet whilst entertaining young ladies.

Now then, the recipe. I have removed the sandalwood and pepper to suit modern tastes a little more, but feel free to add 1/4 tsp of each if you wish. I do not know where you can find sandalwood, I have too many children and a husband who’s rarely here to be searching for it, so you’ll have to be your own google if sandalwood interests you. Oh, I also swapped mace for nutmeg. Mainly because it’s what I had to hand and it’s that bit stronger in flavour.

I have gone for an oven baked option rather than deep frying, however do fry if you can handle the calories and indeed, the stress of dealing with bubbling oil. (Bubbling oil… now that does sound medieval). I often have young children with me in the kitchen, so anything involving deep frying scares the hell out of me. I’ve read too many stories in the Daily Mail to allow me to deep fry without evacuating the house first.

Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 8 and line a baking tray with non stick baking parchment. Start by infusing the saffron in the cold water (for the pastry) and setting it aside for 10 minutes. In the meanwhile measure out the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl, mix and set aside.

Mix together all of the filling ingredients and divide into 9 roughly equal amounts and set aside. Make the pastry by adding the water (including saffron bits) to the dry ingredients until it just forms a soft dough, using your hand to pull it together – you will likely not need all the water, though it depends on the brand of flour you use – some flours absorb water more than others. Roll the dough into a sausage, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 1 hour. The chilling makes it much easier to handle, you can miss it out if you wish, but it’s a sticky dough.

Divide the dough sausage into thirds, then cut each third into 3 equal pieces. You should have 9 pieces of dough all of the same size. Roll each piece into a ball, squash the dough to flatten it and then place a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the centre. Fold the dough edges into the centre to completely cover the filling and pinch together, then roll between your palms to ensure the fruit parcel is a sphere shape. Repeat until all the dough is used up. (If the dough is very hard for you to handle then oil your hands first).

Now strictly these should be deep fried but as I am making these for more modern tastes and calorie controlled diets I suggest you place them on your lined baking sheet, brush liberally with oil and bake for 25 minutes until lightly browned. You can of course deep fry them in oil if you feel medievally inclined.

The original recipe says to eat these warm but I prefer them cold with port and cheese.

I am sitting here typing away on the sofa with bright red, just painted, glossy Chanel red finger nails. And a can of Carlsberg topped up with lime (lager and slime as we used to call it as teens) balancing precariously on top of a cook book by Aggie ‘How clean is your house?’ MacKenzie. From my pew I can see at least 3 spiders webs that have been woven in just 24 hours. I live with wildlife – the backdoor is mostly open so my spider pals like to be friends. The ridiculousness of this scene is not lost on me. My toenails are similarly adorned with crimson paint as I hear creatures like it.

The last time I painted both my finger and toenails was the night before I met my husband. So you could say things have been busy in the last 5 years. They have, they really have. I bounce from one drama/deadline/snotty child to the next. Anyway, this isn’t even what I wanted to write about. I wanted to say that I am enjoying the summer holidays. As in the ones that release my children from playschool and let me have them back from dawn till dusk every day of the week. But this is so unfashionable I barely dare type it. The red nails are spurring me on though.

What is fashionable in Mummy World (remember Children’s World – that dreadful shop where you could kit out your kids under one roof, from haircut to trainers? Imagine how wonderful Mum’s World would be – red wine, cats to stoke, bikini wax, eyebrow shaping, bras, gossip and therapy for shouting all under one roof. Heaven.) is to moan about the kids, wish them back at school/playschool and generally hate every moment of the summer hols.

Now before anyone gets upset and calls me smug, this is not about me having perfect kids who don’t try and poke each other with sticks or hit each other on the head with wooden trains. This isn’t even about me having a myriad of ideas to keep small people occupied, because by 4.30pm we’re all looking at each other in wonderment of how on earth we fill the last few hours of the day. It’s not about any of that. It’s just to say that I LOVE not having to abide by deadlines. So there’s no playschool opening time. There’s no pick up time. There’s no lunchboxes to fill. There’s no tennis lessons to arrive at and stand miserably watching a game I don’t understand. There’s no nothing – other than trips to places we like (the zoo, the local steam railway, the park, the local shops for spurious errands to buy unnecessary items) so basically we’re all pretty unstressed. Still there’s been time for some low level misery about the local zoo replacing the giraffes with camels. But then you can’t have it all. Summer holidays, they rock.

Now, this recipe. Hmmm. I have to be honest with you and say I didn’t love it. To be clear I made it for a vegan friend who was visiting as a substitute chocolate mousse. But just like when I serve my husband veggie meals, I went sniffing out the dairy produce. And it just wasn’t there. So I have remamed it chocolate pud. It’s very much a pudding and it’s very very rich. This amount made 4 servings but I could barely eat a third of mine and I have a ferocious appetite. I think it would make mighty fine truffles rolled in chopped nuts. Or very good vegan icing for a cake. Just serve the cake cold as the chocolate pud stuff starts to melt at room temperature. It’s funny old stuff.

You need to start this the day before you need it. Put the tin of coconut milk in the fridge overnight. Then about 2 hours before you want your pudding pour boiling water over the dates (in a small bowl) and leave to soften for 30 minutes. In the meantime open the coconut milk and remove the hard cream into a measuring jug – you should have about 200g. The milk leftover can be added to curries, frozen for later or used in custard for a totally tropical taste.

Strain the dates then add them to the coconut cream. Use a hand blender to blitz the lot together until you can only just see flecks of the date skin. Then push this mixture through a fine sieve and discard any date skin leftover. Add the cocoa to the leftover datey coconut cream, mix well. Then blend for 2 minutes with the stick blender. Spoon into dishes and chill for at least an hour before serving. I think this might make nice ice-cream but haven’t tried it. If you do please let me know.

FYI: My vegan pal loved it. She took the rest of the portion she couldn’t eat home.

I think if The Flintstones had made cake (did they, did they? I just can’t recall) this might be the one they’d make. It’s pleasingly rubble like inside – meaning there’s no stingy dried fruit quota. And it’s easy to make, perfect for a cave man or woman who has more important things to do than whip egg white for instance. This is a cake with substance and a nice orangey addition to the end of July. I hope you like it.

Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3 and line a 24 x 20cm tray with greaseproof paper. Cream the butter and sugar together until really light and fluffy then add an egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Grate the zest over the mixture and add the orange juice, flour, nuts and dried fruit. Fold the flour and fruity nut mixture in with a metal spoon, slicing rather than beating. Spoon into the prepared tray and bake for 40 minutes until browned, well risen and a toothpick comes out of the centre of the cake clean.

Whilst still warm brush with half the juice of the remaining orange and then sprinkle with 1.5 tbsp of icing sugar. Pour the rest of the juice over and then add the rest of the icing sugar. Leave to cool before slicing and enjoying with a cuppa. Very nice with ice-cream too by the way.

On the whole miniature versions of things don’t do it for me. Half pints. Funsize chocolate. Express massages. Minibreaks. Happy Meals. However, when it comes to cupcake versions of large cakes I make an exception. They tickle me.

It’s your choice whether to adorn with marzipan balls, tiny chocolate eggs or both if you can’t decide. Makes 12.

Preheat the oven to Gas 5/190C. Place 12 cupcake cases into a tray. Heat the ginger wine in a small pan together with all the dried fruit until the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Place the remaining cake ingredients into a bowl and mix together with an electric handheld mixer until smooth and creamy. Stir in the soaked fruit and then divide between the cupcake cases. Level with your fingers and bake on the middle rack of the oven for about 20 minutes until slightly brown, well risen and a toothpick comes out of the centre of the middle cupcakes with clean. Cool out of the tin, on a wire rack.

Once cool, brush a little jam onto each cake and then roll and cut out circles of marzipan (using icing sugar to aid rolling and a round cutter) to place on top. Then either add 11 small balls of marzipan to the top of each cake or 11 tiny chocolate eggs. Fix in place with a dab of jam.

If you fancied watching me chatterbox away about these cupcakes then there’s a little film below to watch. It’s 6 minutes long though. Gosh, I can talk. And no, it’s not my kitchen.

Holly Bell

I’m a mum of 3 boys, a cookbook writer and also a finalist on the 2011 Great British Bake Off.
I’ve decided to record the recipes I use, partly to save them somewhere and partly in case someone else might like to use them...
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